五分鐘構思法：立場、兩個論點、展開
9 分鐘
The single biggest difference between a Band 5 essay and a Band 7 essay is usually decided before the writer types a sentence. Spend five minutes on three steps. Minute 1: decide your position and commit to it — for opinion prompts, pick a side you can actually defend, not the "correct" or safest-sounding one; for discussion prompts, decide how you will balance both views and where you personally land. Minutes 2–3: generate exactly two main ideas that support your position, not three or four. Two ideas you can develop deeply beat four ideas you can only mention — examiners reward development, not quantity. Minutes 4–5: for each idea, jot one line of development — a reason, a specific example, or a consequence — so that when you reach the paragraph, you are elaborating a plan, not inventing content under time pressure.
5 分檔作文與 7 分檔作文之間最大的差別，往往在寫下第一句話之前就已經決定了。花五分鐘做三件事。第 1 分鐘：確定立場並堅持到底——如果是觀點類題目，選一個你真的能自圓其說的立場，而不是聽起來「最正確」或「最安全」的那個；如果是討論類題目，決定你要如何平衡兩種觀點，以及你個人最終站在哪一邊。第 2 到 3 分鐘：為你的立場想出恰好兩個主要論點，不是三個，也不是四個。兩個能被你深入展開的論點，勝過四個只能一筆帶過的論點——考官獎勵的是展開的深度，而不是數量。第 4 到 5 分鐘：為每個論點寫下一行展開思路——一個理由、一個具體例子，或一個後果——這樣等你真正寫到那一段時，你是在「展開一個已有的計畫」，而不是在時間壓力下臨時編內容。
例題講解
Prompt: "Some people think that governments should invest more in public transport rather than roads. To what extent do you agree or disagree?" Five-minute plan: Position — mostly agree. Idea 1 — public transport investment reduces congestion at scale (reason: one bus replaces dozens of cars; example: cities that expanded metro lines saw measurable drops in peak-hour traffic). Idea 2 — road expansion tends to induce more driving rather than solve congestion (reason: wider roads lower the cost of driving, so more people choose to drive; consequence: congestion returns within a few years). Concession — acknowledge that some road spending remains necessary for freight and rural areas, then restate that the overall balance should shift.
Notice what the plan is not: it is not sentences. It is a skeleton — a position, two ideas each with a reason plus either an example or a consequence, and a planned concession. A writer working from this skeleton never has to stop and think "what do I say next?" mid-essay, because every paragraph's job was decided in minute one through five. The concession line is what pushes a plan from Band 6 territory toward Band 7+: it shows the writer can handle nuance instead of arguing only one flat, unqualified position.
請注意這份計畫「不是」什麼：它不是完整的句子，而是一個骨架——一個立場、兩個各帶一個理由外加例子或後果的論點，以及一個提前想好的「讓步」。按照這個骨架寫作的人，絕不會在文章中途停下來想「接下來該說什麼」，因為每一段的任務在這五分鐘裡就已經定好了。這條「讓步」正是把計畫從 6 分檔推向 7 分以上檔次的關鍵：它說明寫作者能夠處理觀點的複雜面，而不是只會舉著一個絕對、不加限定的立場一路論證到底。
One more discipline worth building: before you commit to an idea, silently test it with "why" and "so what". If you cannot answer "why is that true" with a real reason, or "so what" with a real consequence, the idea is too thin to carry a full paragraph and you should swap it for one you can actually develop. This test, run during planning rather than while writing, is what prevents the common failure mode of a paragraph that restates the topic sentence three different ways because there was nothing else to say.
還有一個值得養成的習慣：在你真正採用某個論點之前，先在心裡用「為什麼」和「那又如何」來檢驗它。如果你答不出一個真正的理由來回答「這為什麼是真的」，或者答不出一個真正的後果來回答「那又會怎樣」，說明這個論點太單薄，撐不起一整段，你應該換成一個真正能展開的論點。這個檢驗放在構思階段做，而不是等到動筆時才發現——這正是避免最常見的失敗情形的關鍵：一段話反反覆覆用三種不同的方式重述主題句，因為其實已經沒有別的話可說了。